Marvel Studios Sets March 2011 Start Date For ‘Runaways’

We don’t know how many movies Marvel Studios has in the early stages of development but we do definitely know as of today which film is coming next!

2011 will see the introductory solo films of Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, followed by the epic team-up adventure, The Avengers, in 2012. For a long time we have pondered what film would accompany The Avengers that year and we can now say that it’ll definitely be Runaways.

In July, we found out that Runaways was targeting a production start somewhere in the first half of 2011, between January and July but today, Production Weekly confirms that it will in fact being principal photography in March, one month after The Avengers begins shooting.

The timeframe update came through a Tweet several hours ago:

Update: Marvel’s “The Runaways” (aka “Small Faces”), is scheduled to begin filming in March in L.A.

I don’t understand the “Small Faces” part of it but I certainly hope Runaways will not be retitled to that… It could be a code name for the project, similar to “Frostbite” for the Captain America shoot.

Debuting in 2003 from creators Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, Runaways is an award-winning comic series which follows the story of a group of six teenagers who learn that their parents are super-villains. Together they gather weapons and run away to learn more about themselves and the powers they have, using them for good. It takes place in LA so it’s good to know they’re shooting on location.

As I mentioned in our last discussion on Runaways, this puts Marvel on course to continue with their plan of at least two features a year. The question now becomes, will those be the only two Marvel Studios movies hitting theaters in 2012? There’s Iron Man 3 and Ant-Man which we know are coming eventually, perhaps in 2013, and then there’s Dr. Strange, Iron Fist and others that have writers and are in pre-production.

As we enter the Fall season, expect the rumors about casting the young heroes to start rolling in. We at least don’t have to deal with that on the director front with Peter Sollett (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) having already signed for the job.